The Conference entitled ‘Recruitment 2011 – The Way Forward” in City West Hotel on Thursday 12th of May focused on the dynamic tools and skill sets the industry needs to embrace in order to approach the coming year with confidence. With a line up of excellent speakers from around the globe, a full schedule has been designed to arm the delegates with training, advice, and tips to enhance their business skills well into the future.

NRF President Colin Donnery said, ”The Irish economy has probably had its most challenging 12 months ever but there is an optimism returning to businesses in most sectors. The recruitment sector has proven its resilience during this period with agencies providing the flexible staffing solutions that have helped our clients get through the worst and grow into the future. Impending changes in legislation this year will have an impact on how we do business in our temporary labour markets so it is vital we are ready for all eventualities. With this in mind we have chosen a strong line up of Global expert speakers who will impart information on trends, legislation and what the future holds for the Recruitment Industry in Ireland.

With the new impending legislation for Agency workers coming into effect in December this year the Federation invited the NRF members to bring along their HR Clients. It resulted in the probably largest attendance of any NRF Conference lately.

Speakers:Mr, John Perry TD

Wikipedia: John Perry (born 15 August 1956) is an Irish Fine Gael politician. He is currently a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Sligo–North Leitrim constituency,[1] and the Minister of State for Small Business.

Perry was born in Ballymote, County Sligo. He was educated at Ballymote National School and Corran College, Ballymote. Perry was first elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1997 general election for the constituency and has retained his seat since.[2] In 1997, he became Fine Gael spokesperson on Science, Technology, Small Business and Enterprise, and the Border Counties. In June 2000, he was appointed Assistant Director of Organisation and Deputy spokesperson with special responsibility for Border Issues. He held this post until February 2001.

Between September 2002 and October 2004 he was Vice-Chairman of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications and Natural Resources. He has also served as Chairman of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee. In October 2004, he was appointed to the position as party spokesperson for the Marine, in Enda Kenny’s Front Bench. He was demoted from the Front Bench after a reshuffle following the 2007 general election. He was a member of Sligo County Council from 1999 to 2004, representing the Sligo–Strandhill electoral area.

In July 2010, he was appointed as party spokesperson on Small Business.[3] On 10 March 2011, he was appointed as Minister of State for Small Business.

Chairperson: Peter Cosgrove, Vice President NRF
Peter joined the NRF committee in July 2009 and was elected to the role of Vice President in October 2010. Peter started his career in banking with JP Morgan before working with PWC in London as a management consultant. He began his career in recruitment in 2000 with Robert Walters, subsequently with Hudson in 2003 and currently is a Director with CPL. Peter has a strong background in running a sales business as well as turning businesses around through strategic and operational initiatives demonstrated in recruitment roles and previously in his PWC career. Peter is a regular contributor to the national media on areas of recruitment, assessment and retention as well as a speaker at industry events. Peter is also a Board member of the not for profit organisation Junior Achievement an organisation targeted at keeping students in schools to improve their education.

Colin Donnery, NRF President
Colin has been working in the recruitment industry since 1998. Initially working with an international IT consultancy he has also managed agencies in the Sales and Marketing, Hospitality, Engineering, construction and scientific sectors. Colin has been working with FRS Recruitment since 2003 as general manager , FRS specialise in the provision of bespoke labour supply and permanent recruitment solutions across all sectors in Ireland and internationally.

Frank Collins, NRF Legislation expert
Director of Compliance and Regulatory Affairs at Parc Aviation Limited.
Frank is a Fellow of the Chartered Accountants in Ireland and has a Bachelor of Business Studies Degree from Trinity College. He also lectures in Trinity College on the Business and Information Technology Degree course.

Tony Goodwin, Antal International
Tony Goodwin is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Antal International, a global management and executive recruitment company and one of the fastest growing business services organisations in emerging markets such as China, Eastern Europe and India. Antal now has 92 offices in 32 countries around the world. A graduate of Middlesex University, Tony trained as a Chartered Accountant before moving into financial recruitment where he ran operations for HW Group (now part of Hudson). In 1993, spotting the potential of the new professional employment markets in the former Warsaw Pact countries, he set up his own business with an office in Budapest in Hungary and named the company Antal – Hungarian for ‘Tony’. Since then Tony and his team have developed substantial businesses in highly challenging environments across the globe, including both Russia and China. Tony has completed a book ‘How They Blew It’ which was published in July 2010. In June 2010, Tony was named as one of the country’s top businessmen after being awarded a prize at the Ernst & Young London & South Entrepreneur of the Year Awards 2010.

Ann Swain, APSCO
Ann Swain is the Chief Executive of The Association of Professional Staffing Companies, formed by the merger of the Association of Technology Staffing Companies and the Forum of Professional Recruiters in January 2009. APSCo provides a strong and united voice for those recruitment firms involved in the acquisition of business professionals on behalf of their clients on a permanent or flexible basis. Ann has a wealth of experience in the professional recruitment market as a recruiter, manager, trainer, sales director, managing director and spent a few years on the client side of the fence as an HR Manager. She was the founder, in 1988 of Learning Curve, the specialist recruitment industry training company which was acquired by the Delphi Group in 1997. Ann’s first, very successful, business book ‘The Professional Recruiter’s Handbook’ was published by Kogan Page in 2009 and has become a business best seller. Ann is a well-respected authority in our industry, a hugely popular international speaker and a passionate advocate for the UK Recruitment Profession.

Jonathan Campbell, Social Talent
Jonathan has worked as a Recruiter in Ireland and the Caribbean for the last 13 years but now runs Social Talent, a talent acquisition consultancy and agency that specialises in providing technology and social media services to recruiters. The team at Social Talent build talent communities; develop employer branding strategies, train internet recruiters & source recruitment staff for clients globally. Since forming late in 2010 they have worked with most of the leading recruitment agencies in Ireland and also work with corporates in the legal, technology and financial services sectors.

Kingsley Aikins, Networking Matters
Managing Director of Kingsley Aikins and Associates and is also Senior Advisor to The Ireland Funds having served previously as CEO of The Worldwide Ireland Funds. Previously he was Executive Director of the American Ireland Fund and founding Director of both The Australian Ireland Fund and The Ireland Fund of New Zealand. He formerly worked for CTT and the IDA. Kingsley is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin. Since 1976 the Fund has raised over $350 million for philanthropic projects across the island of Ireland and around the world. The fund is driven by members of Ireland’s worldwide Diaspora. Kingsley was also contributor to the Farmleigh Conference in 2009.The presentation covered both diaspora issues and networking: specifically the importance of a comprehensive global strategy that covers trade, investment, tourism, education and philanthropy and will shed light on what other countries are doing in this area. He outlined his four stage approach: Research, Cultivation, Solicitation and Stewardship.

Following the Recruitment Workshop in Dublin, Peter Cosgrove from Hudson Recruitment is holding the same in Cork. There is a Galway Workshop planned as well. Date and location will be confirmed here closer to the date.

JOB SEEKER EVENT CORK NOVEMBER 10th

The National Recruitment Federation is hosting a free job seekers event on November 10th.

National Recruitment Federation (NRF) is launching its Recruitment Industry Awards 2009, a gala awards ceremony on Friday, 2nd October 2009 at The Four Seasons Hotel, will once again be presented by RTE’s Pamela Flood.

Judges:
Mark Fielding, CEO ISME,
Kirsty Kirkwood, former European Head of Staffing, State Street
Sean O’Meara, Former Chief Executive, Young Advertising
Grainne Martin, Ex-MD of Computer People Ltd

The Jobseekers Choice category is where you can have your say about who is the best Recruitment Agency of the National Recruitment Federation at Survey Monkey

“Recruiters have been the hardest hit of any sector,” he said. “As time goes by, it’s getting worse and worse. I believe the figure of those who have lost their jobs in recruitment could be around two out of three.

“If there are no signs of the unemployment rate dropping, we are facing the current Spanish rate of 18pc.”

However, Mr Collins was more optimistic about the prospects for recruiters following a pickup in ads in the past few months.

“January and February were the worst months, but since then it has picked up,” he said. “Recruiters had to cut their cloth to suit their revenue.

National Recruitment Federation Launches Annual Conference 2009 with the good news of 400 jobs filled last week

1st April 2009

The National Recruitment Federation today announced the line-up for its Annual Conference 2009 entitled Facing the Future With Ease – Education, Enterprise & Enthusiasm, which will take place on Thursday, 23rd April 2009 at Citywest Hotel, Saggart, Co Dublin. The Federation which represents recruitment agencies in Ireland, also heralded a more positive outlook in the jobs market with an estimated 400 jobs filled by its member agencies last week.

Flying in the face of today’s all-consuming mood of pessimism, depression and fear, the NRF is calling for a revival of the spirit, energy and gutsy innovation for which this country has been praised. For the first year, the Federation is opening the event to anybody in the recruitment profession. For further information call Ph: 01-8161754 or log on to www.nrf.ie

While recognising the need to address the key issues of concern to the industry today, the NRF made a conscious decision not to dwell on the negatives for the entire session. Instead they have decided to incite the steely resolve and indefatigable passion needed to get the industry back on its feet again. Indeed due to the kind support of the conference sponsors and exhibitors (listed below) there is no charge for attending the event for NRF member agencies with just a nominal charge for non-members.

Chaired by career management expert Rowan Manahan (Fortify Services), the conference will be officially launched with an opening address from Minister for Labour Affairs, Mr Billy Kelleher, TD followed by an overview of the industry “today & tomorrow” from NRF President, Frank Collins. (Most notably Frank will be introducing the federation’s education strategy on the day). Alan Haugh of the National Employment Rights Association will look at the state body’s progress to date in fostering a culture of compliance and improving the standards of employment, while Annmarie Muntz of the world employers body EuroCIETT, will give us an insight into the crucial role of our industry internationally.

The conference will then turn its attention to learning from experience as Lucy Gaffney, Chairperson of Communicorps (which has 44 radio stations in 9 different countries) and formerly Director and COO of Esat Telecomm, shares her tales of tackling the ups and downs of the economy over the years and most importantly coming through it in one piece. Inviting us to taking an introspective look at ourselves and how personality types have a strong bearing on how we manage stress, Tempy Cummins of Vision 2 Reality, will provide tips and advice on psyching ourselves up to meet the challenges ahead. Tempy will also give a very important nod to the fact that both owners and managers suffer deeply at these times and could do with a helping hand in motivating themselves before trying to motivate their staff.

Although the economy is on a slowdown, the pace of technological advance is hurtling along at break-neck speed with networking, advice, business deals etc all taking place at a phenomenal rate online. The savvy entrepreneur knows that the future is on the net but many a savvy entrepreneur is also up to their neck in trying to manage their day-to-day business and simply do not have time to find out what’s new and how to do it. Coming to the rescue will be internet communications expert Keith Bohanna (co-founder of dbTwang.com), who will address in particular the area of Blog Marketing with a live demonstration on exactly how to make the sites such as LinkedIn and BlogSpot work for you.

To keep recruiters in touch with their target audiences, chair person Rowan Manahan will present us with some feedback from both employers and jobseekers on what they need from recruitment agencies today therefore helping them to adapt their services to ever-changing demands. And finally, delegates will leave with a strategy in hand for igniting the engines of enterprise once again as consultant Bill Boorman famed for his “Tin Hat Strategy” will present a 13 Point Plan for Business Growth.

Said NRF President, Frank Collins, “The last year and in particular the last 6 months have thrown the industry into an unprecedented freefall. We have of course seen slowdowns before but as the saying goes, the higher you climb the further you fall. Ireland has had it good for so long and are now in the midst of conflicting arguments as to where to turn. The NRF has put much thought into how it can help to provide some answers to questions but most importantly how to inject a little energy back into our hearts so that we can help to drive the economy forward again. I’m confident we’ve created a schedule that will help do just that and I look forward seeing the results.”

The National Recruitment Federation is a voluntary organisation set up to establish and maintain standards and codes of practice for the recruitment industry. Representing approx 120 companies throughout Ireland the NRF focuses it’s attentions on providing these members with the best possible service in terms of communication, support, advice sharing and problem solving.

ENDS

Frank Collins is available at any time for comment or interview. Speakers may also be contacted for interview upon request.

The Irish Jobs Guru – always creative, always inoperative, always so realistic, funny and true. Want an insight in the recruitment and jobs scene in Ireland – The Irish Jobs Guru is a blog to read!

Medical Sales Expert – Some people say that the Recruitment in Ireland works best when it is done in the tiny niches. Can you imagine something more specific that the sales profession in the medical industry? If that is your niche – the Medical Sales Pro Blog is for your!

My Medical Jobs – another Irish recruiter in the medical industry. Nice and easy to read from a true medical recruitment professional.

My personal best is:

National Recruitment Federation Awards Blog – I guess when you will an award, you have to show off with it. Isn’t that what the award was for in the first place? Generating press coverage? Well, it is. That is what it is all about. Creating a blog about it, is a step further. A step in the right direction. A step ion 21st century. Well done!!!